Lem vs. Introspection - Round 4

Lem Doesn't Need Your Love

Yes, universal adoration would be nice (it would certainly help in acquiring free drinks), but I no longer think it’s required. Why? Because of faeries. Yes, you heard (read?) me right—annoying, abrasive, good-for-nothing faeries. I’ve given up on anything resembling affection from tiny fey folk. Let the housecats eat ‘em for all I care.

Okay, that might be a little harsh, but still, what must I do to befriend these little monsters? Apparently bribery works for some, but after throwing quite a few coins away trying to buy their love, I’m more than a little wary of dumping more silvers into their tiny pockets. Maybe tiny cakes or pies might work, but producing baked goods is hardly my specialty (consuming them is). So what’s left?

Maybe—perhaps—if their forest caught on fire (totally through happenstance of course), and the little cretins were forced to flee for their lives (through no fault of my own), then maybe a courageous ranger could appear from the forest and save them through clever application of water (preferably by dumping it over their stupid little heads.)

No Journal, no. Arson is never the answer (unless the question is ‘What is the criminal act of purposely starting fires?’) No, the answer is to live and let live. If they want to be fickle, immature little babies, then they can keep their lousy forest. No skin off of my nose. Their river smells bad anyway.

What else is going on? Oh, well, mostly brutal warfare. Since my last writing our band has exterminated something like a million mites, a few hundred giant centipedes, and one exceptionally giant centipede. Mites are nasty little monsters, and my friends and I dispatched them with minimal hesitation (though somehow in the process we ended up in league with other nasty little monsters). In raiding the Mite hole, we rescued a captured kobold who seemed to be having a remarkably bad day. Sasha convinced little ‘Mik-Mek’ (not a bad name to be honest) to take us back to their den, and there discovered that the clan was being led by a witchdoctor of sorts. Sasha proceeded to negotiate with the little beasts, and through some series of developments I’m not sure I followed, we ended up overthrowing their leader and ‘freeing’ the kobolds to go back to being crazy evil lizards. This is progress as our band measures it. Huzzah.

I sound bitter, but I’m really not. After being invited into the kobold’s den, I can say surely that they pose little threat, especially with their militant leader overthrown. I worry though what will happen in the years to come, when the maps we make end up in the hands of human settlers driving south. How much of this land will we stake out as Kobold Kountry? And how long will it be before some other soothsayer comes to rally the kobolds back to violence?

Sasha has assured me that these are problems for another day. Right now, his only concern seems to be driving to the bandit’s fort and driving them from it. To that end, he’s recruited a reformed bandit named Owen to lead us to their door. Poor Owen knows better than us what we’re headed toward, and doesn’t seem thrilled at all to be showing us the way. But Sasha has leaned on him, and so he leads. We’ll see what comes of it.

I’m not going to talk about Katya because I tend to gush, so I’ll say instead that Dyimi is a hell of a fighter. For a little fellow, he can sure take a hit, and even without Garr beneath him he dished out quite a bit of the damage we did in the Mite’s hidey hole. Efforts on my part to make peace with Garr have failed, but I haven’t given up yet. Unlike fairy nastiness, I think there’s hope with the dog.

Good bye for now Journal, we’re off to storm the castle. I promise I’ll bring you something memorable for next time I write.